


May The Odds

by PeriPeriwinkle



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Eye Trauma, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22743397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeriPeriwinkle/pseuds/PeriPeriwinkle
Summary: Dorian is picked for the 74th Hunger Games.May the odds be ever in your favor.
Relationships: Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

“Dorian Pavus!”

The words echo around the town square like nails screeching against a green board – or at least that’s how it feels like to Dorian. His legs lock up and his heart seems to stop. The kids around him stare, some looking relieved, some looking pitiful. Waiting.

The Capitol woman’s grin falters, twisting her polished exterior into an ugly half scowl. “Mister Pavus?” She repeats herself, but not without some bitterness. Dorian's seen her enough times before to know she _hates_ being ignored, and hates even more to be kept waiting.

Dorian forces his legs to move, slowly but surely marching towards the platform in a daze. Every step is pure agony, the hundreds of eyes focused on him like daggers all over his body. The capitol woman’s smile widens, gold teeth twinkling behind her neon pink lipstick, her rainbow cotton-candy dress fluttering ominously despite the fact there is no wind to speak of.

She pulls him to stand on her other side as soon as his toes graze the platform, the tips of her sharp nails purposefully digging into his shoulder, like a warning, and Dorian shudders, feeling himself become nauseous, her palm clammy and cold against his skin and through his clothes. He looks up at the crowd, his eyes scanning the faces quickly, until he sees Felix, his familiar face like a balm, making his heart slow and his breathing stabilize. He looks as if he's about to puke, and Dorian feels nauseous in his stead.

“Ladies and gentleman, I present to you District Three’s tributes of the 74th Hunger Games!”

Next thing Dorian knows Gereon is hugging him, so tightly he can barely breathe. Dorian stutters, arms awkwardly hanging in the air; Gereon isn't the hugging type and Dorian is stunned. He looks up over the man's shoulder and sees Felix hanging back in his wheelchair, grimacing, eyes red and nose swollen.

“Dorian,” Gereon says, voice tight as he pulls back and looks Dorian in his eyes. “I’m... I’m so sorry, Dorian.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” The voice nearly doesn’t sound like his own. Felix wheels forward and places a hand over his father’s shoulder, his eyes locked with Dorian’s.

“Come back home, Dorian,” he whispers, and Dorian’s eyes well up.

The same words he told Felix the previous year when he was picked as tribute himself. The very same.

It's almost as if something in Dorian snaps, and it finally hits him. He leans down and hugs Felix tightly, fingers gripping his shoulderblades, face hidden on the crook of his neck. When he pulls back he sees that his parents are there as well, waiting for their turn to speak to their son.

“Two minutes," the capital guard barks out from behind him, and Dorian bites his lip as he watches Gereon and Felix walk away. Gereon sets a heavy hand over Halward's shoulder as they walk past each other, says something that Dorian is unable to hear, and Felix glances back one last time before he's wheeled out of the room.

“Dorian,” His father says once he's at arm's lenght, hands folded behind his back and an awkward cough hidden behind his lips. They stay like that for a few seconds, neither saying anything, and eventually he shakes his head and turns, quickly walking away.

Dorian almost feels hurt. Almost.

His mother _tsks,_ then wraps her arms around her son’s shoulders. It has been so long since his mother last showed him physical affection that Dorian only now notices how much he’s grown; he’s several inches taller than she is, his shoulders are wider, and she doesn't have to lean down to hug him, which means he'll be _much_ taller than her in a few years.

Which is when it hits him that that's probably not going to happen anymore.

She pulls back, and Dorian watches as big, fat tears fall freely from her eyes and down her cheeks, smearing her makeup and drenching the collar of her dress, but she makes no move to wipe them away.

“Don’t mind your father, he was never good with goodbyes," she says, trying to smile like it’s a funny joke, but the smile is weak and her lips shake with the effort. She presses her lips together and inhales sharply. “My son. Tribute of the Hunger Games.”

“Yep,” Dorian says numbly. “That’s me.”

She places a gentle hand over his cheek and touches foreheads with him like she used to do when he was a kid and she was drunk, except she now doesn't have to look down to gaze into his eyes, and she smells like fruity perfume instead of whisky. The capitol guard looks at his watch, impatient, and Dorian figures she’s finally about to walk away, but to his surprise she reaches behind her neck and fiddles with the clasp on her nape. It’s the necklace with their family crest; a two-headed obsidian snake with golden scales carved into its body and eyes made of emeralds, curled and nestled atop seven stones made of diamonds, moonstones and opals. Dorian vividly remembers fiddling with the pendant when he was young, entranced by its perfectly carved details and the mersmerizing shine of its jewels, and never in his life has he ever seen his mother take the necklace off, no matter the occasion, not even for bed.

And now, as she places it gently around his own neck, it's his.

“Bring this back to me, son. You promise?”

Dorian clutches the pendant tightly, and both her hands cover his closed fist. The pendant is warm from laying atop her collarbone and it digs painfully into the bend of his fingers.

“I’ll try,” he says, choked up, and she nods, kissing his cheek.

It's the best promise he can do.

The guard finally huffs and roughly pulls Dorian by the arm, taking him away from his mother’s arms, and as he’s dragged away he takes a good look at her face, her clothes, her hair, her trembling, waving hand – just in case it’s the last time he ever will.

\---

Dorian’s from a family of politicians, but Halward would certainly take offense in such a simpleton description. _We're a family of good values,_ he’d always say, and rebellious little Dorian always made sure to stain the family’s name beyond redemption in every prestigious school on District Three. His parents eventually gave up trying to reel him in and sent him away to the Alexius family manor for home schooling, and to everyone's and no one's surprise, Dorian excelled at his studies, as he always did. Dorian soaked up whatever Gereon had to teach like a dry sponge, always interested and eager to learn, always looking forward for his classes with Gereon, who treated him and listened to him with patience and kindness, but more importantly, allowed Dorian to express himself outside teaching hours however he saw fit.

The years passed, and Dorian _thrived_. During his free time he attended the local underground fight club, climbed the trees around the Alexius' property, and roughhoused with Felix, who quickly became his best friend. He told himself that he did all of these things so he could be prepared if he was ever called for the Hunger Games, but he _actually_ did it because he enjoyed it; liked training his body just as hard as he trained his mind.

He also thoroughly enjoyed spending time with the male fighters at the club, although he wouldn’t ever admit it to anyone out loud. He’d throw steamy looks to them after the fights, eyeing their defined muscles and sweaty bodies until they locked eyes with him. Dorian always waited for that cheeky grin and subtle head tilt, the type you’d only see if you were waiting for it, and before he knew it he'd be clinging to a handsome man in a secluded corner of the club, behind curtains or inside a closet, kissing passionately until their lips were sore and Dorian’s partner's hair was a thoroughly tangled mess. Everyone knew you’d enjoyed seven minutes in heaven with Pavus if you showed up looking like you’d walked through a hurricane.

At one point, Dorian could confidently say his life was mostly perfect... and then, the 73rd Reaping came.

Felix was chosen as tribute for the 73rd Hunger Games, at sixteen years old, and everyone was gutted; Felix was scrawny and gangly, the stereotypical intellectual and pacifist type that preferred to spend time in his room with his numbers and mathematical theories rather than outside, the only exception to that rule being when Dorian spent time with him. From the very same day Felix left for the Capitol, Dorian buried his grief with violence and isolation; he took a punching bag and a few training dummies to the backyard where he and Felix spent time together, and there he isolated himself most days, throwing punches and pushing himself until his muscles were sore and his body shaky, just to keep his mind away from the fact that his best friend was most likely doomed to perish. He asked Gereon to only ever tell him anything of the games if Felix died, and day after day, against all odds, Felix survived, until he was the last man standing.

Dorian was told afterwards that the roughhousing he and Dorian engaged on saved Felix’s life. He never bothered to ask how so; he didn’t want to know.

The victory wasn’t without its consequences, of course. Felix became severely ill from a poison he came into contact while in the games, and with the money he gained from being a Victor he got the very best treatment for it, but he was never the same again, the illness leaving him with permanent muscle athrophy. His mother Livia had fallen ill with grief and worry while the games were on, and to this day she is nearly stranded to her own bed, weak and frail from the trauma.

And now, at seventeen, Dorian is the district’s newest tribute.

The girl chosen to represent District Three with him is Calpernia, and their mentor is an older man called Danarius; he won the games several years back, but when word spread that he’d performed cruel and invasive tests with implants on a young elvhen boy that worked in his Victory house, his popularity dropped precariously, and Dorian, like most people in District Three, began to look differently at people with servants. People like his own parents.

Calpernia and Danarius hit it off quickly during the train ride, discussing strategies to use in the battlefield and the known weak points of every tribute from each district. The capitol woman watches them both closely, seemingly satisfied with what she sees, but every now and then she looks at Dorian and frowns.

He knows how this works. It’s obvious he won’t be District Three’s favored. They’ll train Calpernia to win and leave him to fend off for himself. Quietly hoping he dies quickly.

Dorian leans against the window and clutches at his necklace, tracing the snake on the pendant on his neck with his fingers, watching the trees go by and counting down how many days he has left to live.

\---

You can always find three types of tributes in the Games every year.

The first type are the people excited to be there, who consider it to be an honor to be a tribute, a challenge, an adventure.

The second are the people either resigned or terrified of their fate, the ones who know they will certainly die on the arena and never return home.

And the third are the people who are not at all thrilled to be there and are the first to admit they’re not trained nor prepared for any of it, but refuse to go down without a fight.

Dorian fits more or less in the third category, and he keeps his eyes open for other people who do too; he knows he needs allies if he wants to survive the Games. No one approaches him right away – District Three isn’t exactly everyone’s favorite – so he does everyone else the same favor and finds a sand bag to empty his mind and frustrations on by himself.

He’s punching and kicking for what feels like hours when he feels the sandbag stop under his fist. He looks up to see a qunari holding it steady, a worried look on his face.

“You ok there, big guy?”

“Me? I’m--” Dorian reaches up to wipe his face and notices that not all moisture dripping down his cheek is sweat. “Oh. Uh, yes, of course. I’m fine. Or, rather, just as fine as anyone else in this room is.”

The qunari keeps holding on to the punching bag, his eyes critical but not hard.

“You’re Dorian, right? District Three, son of infamous politician Halward Pavus.”

“The one and only. And you’re Ashkaari from District Eleven. Good with a rake and a scythe, last I heard.”

“Call me Bull.” He extends a hand forward, and Dorian clasps it without hesitation. Callused, rough, dry, like a worker's hand. The handshake is firm and quick. Dorian nods.

“Bull, then.”

Dorian's heard of District Eleven and their Qunari population; most people have. Good with manual work, specialized in providing for their own, and supposedly, responsible for providing the Capitol with a secret intelligence army. All children who show a knack for this sort of work are taken into Ben Hassrath training at fifteen, and are officially assigned a title and a position once they hit seventeen and are no longer at risk for being selected for the games.

Given his sheer size, Dorian would bet his left kidney that Bull was trained for it long before he turned fifteen, but he apparently wasn't as lucky as the other kids his age. One more day and he would've been at home, initiated to the Ben Hassrath, living life as his seniors planned it for him.

But the Capitol has different plans for people like him and Dorian.

From there, a slow building friendship begins to grow. Bull has just turned eighteen and acts like a mother hen towards the people Dorian has fit into the second category, especially the younger ones. He's a whole head taller than the biggest kid at this year's group, and he makes it crystal clear from day one that he wants nothing to do with the Careers, which makes them fume and glare daggers at Bull whenever they're in the same vicinity. When it’s just Bull and Dorian they spar, much like Dorian did with Felix and the men at the underground club, and it's refreshing, to have a meaningful connection with someone, have something they can do to distract their minds and exhaust their bodies. During their down time they talk about their respective districts, about what they're like and what they do every day, but as an unspoken rule they avoid talking about their personal lives. It hurts to remember that either or neither of them will ever go back to it, and if they ever do it’ll never be the same.

Bull has a lot to vent about, but he holds himself back time and time again. Unlike Dorian, he was chosen as his district’s best chance of winning, but whenever his mentor tries to tell him that he needs to focus and even potentially group up with the Careers he’ll hear nothing of it, the reason being that the girl from District Eleven is thirteen years old, shy and small as can be, her nubby horns barely peeking out from under her curls. Bull refuses to act like she has no chance of surviving, and does everything in his power to teach her how to fend off for herself.

One of such days, Bull's mentor chews him off in front of everybody for wasting his time with the girl instead of honing his own skills. What follows is a nasty fight, filled with screams and threats and horrible name-calling. Everyone watches in silence, and once Bull is done he turns around and locks himself in one of their break rooms, effectively ending the discussion.

Dorian goes back to what he was doing – throwing axes at a target – staying until the last person has long left the training room. He then goes to the break room Bull's still holed up in, picks the lock, and opens the door silently.

Bull is sitting on the floor at the back of the room, in the dark, knees up to his chest and arms crossed atop them, head resting over them. Dorian approaches carefully, and once he's close enough he touches Bull's shoulder, who jumps, startled. He looks around, dazed, eyes swollen and face dirty from crying, and once he sees Dorian he relaxes, shoulders slumping, hides his face on his arms again.

Wordlessly, Dorian sits next to him, throwing an arm around Bull's shoulders, his other holding one of Bull's hands. In response, Bull squeezes his hand tightly, inhaling sharply as his body shakes with renewed sobs, and Dorian leans against him.

Sitting in that cold room, in the dark, crying silently as he holds on to Bull, it finally dawns on Dorian.

The Hunger Games are about to start.

\---

Dorian walks out from the interview room fuming. He pulls at the tacky golden tie they made him wear and spits insults in his mother tongue to anyone who comes his way. Danarius is visibly livid but he lets Dorian stalk past him without a word.

Dorian didn’t smile for his interview. He didn’t act nice or pretty like they hoped he would, and he cursed the interviewer and stormed out after they dared to suggest Felix’s deteriorated health is a sad happening of fate instead of their own damn fault.

He sulks at the back of an empty waiting room, watching everyone’s interviews on a huge screen that covers the entire opposite wall. He knows that what he did was stupid – it pretty much doomed his chances of getting any sponsors. Sealed his fate. He pretty much knew he'd die at the Hunger Games, but now he suspects he'll die an ugly death, with no dignity or comfort, but at the moment he doesn’t care. He feels like a petulant child for it, and later on, when he’s in the arena, he might look back and regret not playing their stupid games, but right now he doesn’t want to give these people the satisfaction of having him pretend like this is all nice and dandy and that he’s perfectly content with any of it.

When Bull’s name is announced several minutes later Dorian sits up. Bull shakes the interviewer’s hand and exchanges pleasantries, but he doesn’t have a wide smile on his face like the Careers did. Dorian's glad. At least someone else seems to think like him.

At one point the interviewer mentions Bull’s sheer size and how that could come to his advantage, and Bull goes very quiet. The interviewer seems nervous, but just as he opens his mouth to say something else Bull speaks up.

“I know I need to come back home safe and sound,” he says, “because I promised my Tama I would. But there are other people here, competing against me, that deserve to live more than I do. And because of that I know I won’t win, not because I can’t, but because I would rather die if it means they’ll live instead.”

The crowd goes quiet. The interviewer is clearly speechless. Dorian’s jaw drops.

Before anyone else can say anything, Bull gets up from his seat, nods, and walks out.

He enters the same room Dorian’s been hiding in, and Dorian leaps to his feet once Bull closes the door behind him.

“Why did you do that for!? Now you won’t get any sponsors!”

He shrugs. “You didn’t exactly win the heart of the sponsors, either.”

Dorian’s mouth snaps closed, because, well, it’s true. On the screen the young girl from District Eleven, Melody, is taking the stage, and Bull inhales sharply. She’s visibly shaking, her eyes reddish with freshly-shed tears. The host tries to console her, the crowd applauses to cheer her up, and Bull huffs.

“I meant what I said,” Bull whispers, and Dorian slides down the wall, eyes fixated to the TV. Bull sits next to him. Melody giggles, and Dorian wants to puke. They put her in a poofy pink dress and she’s excitedly talking about how much she likes it. Bull shakes his head again. “It’s so fucking _unfair._ ”

“It is,” Dorian agrees. When he looks at Bull, he looks so sad, so... desperate _, hopeless_. It’s heartbreaking. “But for whatever’s worth it I think your life is worth as much as anyone else’s.”

Bull doesn’t say anything. He just huffs again, looking away, and when Dorian’s pinkie nudges his thigh he intertwines their fingers together.

\---

When the lift to the arena stops, Dorian can’t help but look around in wonder.

They’re in a grey and dreary looking town square, the air stale and fetid, a massive dry fountain about thirty feet away at the center of the circle of tributes serving as this year’s cornucopia, its base covered in overgrown brown weed. The fountain has a statue of a headless mermaid, and around it are several backpacks and weapons of all shapes and sizes.

First thing Dorian looks for is Bull, and he quickly spots his wide horns, standing high above everyone else. He’s not too far, just eight people to his left; close enough that Dorian notices how he flexes the fingers of one of his hands, how he breathes slowly and measuredly. Almost as if he knows he’s being watched, Bull’s head turns towards Dorian, and they lock eyes for a second that feels to stretch for several minutes.

When Dorian forces himself to look back to the fountain his eyes fall on a big, heavy looking backpack that’s right in his line of sight. He’d decided beforehand that he’d try to make a go for whatever the cornucopia had to offer before splitting away from the rest of the tributes to avoid the bloodbath, and he sets his mind to that one backpack, calculating how fast he'll have to run to get to it, what or who he might need to dodge on his way there and back, praying it has good things to offer. He looks around him, trying to see if maybe the girl from District Four also has his eyes on the same backpack and what to do about it if she is--

\--but Dorian hears a moan, and instead he looks at the girl from District Five; she's ugly-crying, shoulders shaking with hiccups and wailing out as if in pain. Dorian frowns, an uncomfortable shiver running up his neck like and through his scalp like a bad omen, and not a second later she lets out a high-pitched scream of distress and steps out of the platform.

_BOOM._

The first cannon goes off before the countdown even starts, its sound mingled with the noise of the platform's bomb going off.

Dorian looks away, eyes wide, shock running cold down his spine like pure nitrogen. To his left he hears Calpernia gagging as if someone’s spat on her shoes, and on the opposite end of the circle someone else pukes. One of the youngest starts to cry, and their wails reverberates through the rows of grey buildings around them, making it sound louder and shriller than it is.

And then the bell rings, signaling the start of the games. Dorian didn’t even notice the countdown had started.

Somehow he manages to move his legs and sprints for the backpack he had his eyes on, and to his left Calpernia has a different idea, running straight for a rifle that’s close by. Dorian tries to pay attention to his surroundings as he focuses on the bag so he’s not caught as he runs for it, but it's _hard._

His hand wraps around the bag’s strap, a relieved breath leaving his chest, but just as Dorian's about to turn away and make a run for it his eyes lock onto a machete that was hidden behind the bag’s bulk, its blade sunk into the fountain's muddy bottom, just two feet away from where he stands. In a mad impulse he leaps for it and manages to yank it off the ground with his left hand, just a millisecond before the boy from District Five can wrap his meaty hand around its hilt. He's not deterred, though; he jumps forward and tries to rip it out of Dorian’s hand, but Dorian dodges, just like he'd dodge a punch in a boxing match, and slashes the machete in the air to get the boy to back off, managing to inflict a deep cut on his palm.

The boy screams, holds his wrist as blood flows freely from his hand, and Dorian snaps himself out of his shock and uses the edge of the fountain to propel himself away, fleeing from the cornucopia before anyone notices him, just in time for a bullet to wheeze past his ear and sink into the ground. He runs faster, zig-zagging to make himself a harder target, trying to block out the deafening sounds of the screams, he thuds, the footsteps, and most importantly, the death cannons.

Several minutes later, Dorian finally stops running, machete in hand and the backpack safely secured to his back. He looks at the city around him, grey and dirty with pollution, old enough for bricks to be falling off and paint to be peeling from the walls. The streets seem to be purposefully designed like a maze, the sidewalks and the constructions all nearly identical in both color, design and size, with the tallest buildings the furthest away from the cornucopia; those seem to be at least fifty stories high, some of them partly obscured by the grey clouds hanging up ahead.

It’s impossible to see the sun with the smog and the grey clouds up above, which means that telling the time is tricky, but at one point the wind starts picking up and the streets start getting darker, so Dorian knows evening is coming. He hasn’t bumped into anyone yet, but he knows he will soon enough if he doesn't stop wandering around aimlessly.

He tests the door of a five-story building, and when it gives under his hand, he enters.

On the second to last floor he realizes the entire place is empty, devote of furniture or blinds, the smell of pollution thick and dust motes flying about wherever he goes. He thinks about opening a window to let some air in, but he reasons that if someone passes by his building he’ll stick out like a sore thumb, so he leaves them as they are.

He sits down against a wall, sets the machete down, and finally opens his backpack to look at its contents: one flashlight, one sleeping bag, one bottle of water, several protein bars, and surprisingly, a chapstick. He laughs, shakes his head, and hears the music outside.

Cold dread runs through Dorian, but he forces himself to look through the window and see who's died in the Cornucopia. First comes both tributes from District Five – Dorian wonders if the cut he put on the boy’s hand had anything to do with it – followed by four more people, making it a total of six. The music stops and the city goes back to its deafening silence.

Not Bull, though. Good.

Dorian organizes his bag again, spreads his sleeping bag on the floor, sets his machete and the flashlight beside him, and reluctantly goes to sleep.

\---

Dorian wakes with the morning light on his face.

He yawns, stretches, and looks around blearily. There are no sounds outside – no birds, no wind, no rain – and the room looks exactly as it did the day before. He carefully peeks outside after having a big gulp of water, sees no one, and decides that staying inside is his best bet for the moment.

He tries the apartment’s bathroom and is unsurprised to find that there's no running water. Still, he goes through a quick morning routine before sitting down under the window, facing the front door, munching on one of his protein bars.

He has no intention of leaving because he has no intention of killing anyone, so he stays put. He wonders how long it’ll take for people to bump into each other in this city – he reckons not a lot – and tries not to wonder about who might go down next.

Hunger gnaws at his stomach after a few hours, so he lets his head loll to the side as sleep takes over him once more.

He wakes up with the sound of a bang.

Dorian sits up, grabbing his machete, and scrambles to look out the window. He sees nothing unusual, so whoever died didn’t die close by--

But quickly he realizes the sound wasn’t a death cannon, but an explosion. Three buildings to his left, just across the street, another explosion goes off, and in just a few seconds the entire building begins to crumble like it’s made of wet sand.

Dorian feels the color draining from his face. It could’ve been someone who got explosives at the Cornucopia, but a nagging feeling at the back of his neck tells him that’s not it – it’s not a proper Hunger Games arena without surprise traps and obstacles, and Dorian believes he now knows what this year’s trick is.

A canon goes off just as the dust settles. A minute later a hovercraft arrives, and a body is pulled from the rubble, bloody and twisted, up into the air and away from the arena.

Dorian doesn’t see the telltale of curling horns or grey skin, and part of him is glad.

He sits back down and looks around; this must be the way of the gamemakers to either flush people out of their safe haven or to pinpoint their positions out in the map. Either way, Dorian knows he can’t stay put anymore.

He packs his things and walks downstairs and out. He goes past the rubble as he does so, and a flash of red in the cement catches his eye.

He looks away and doesn’t go back.

\---

Hours later, after having only silence as company, he finally hears voices.

Dorian freezes, even though he knows he shouldn't; hesitation kills more than anything else in the Hunger Games. From what he can tell there are three people approaching, maybe four; he recognizes the voices and the laughter as belonging to the Careers, which can only mean bad news. He looks around, trying to measure where they might be coming from, but it's hard to tell when every sound echoes throughout the building walls and narrow alleys. He can’t even look for shadows with the sky as cloudy as it is. As the voices come closer, Dorian swears under his breath, panic rising in his chest, and that's when he hears a small _psst_ from somewhere above him.

When he looks up, on the first floor of the building to his left, he sees the girl from District Eleven, beckoning him up.

_Melody._

There is no time left for second guessing, no matter that he could be walking into a trap. He dashes through the building's front doors, closing them softly behind him, and speeds up the stairs.

When he reaches the first floor he finds Melody sitting under the same window she used to call him up, a single finger over her lips to urge Dorian to be quiet. Not a trap, then. Dorian bites his lip and comes closer.

“The buildings aren’t safe,” he hisses under his breath when he’s close enough for only her to hear. “I saw two collapse this afternoon, and one of them killed someone.”

“I know,” she says, nodding. “The careers picked up on that too, it looks like.”

Dorian peeks out from the bottom of the window, sees that the careers have decided to unpack in the middle of the empty road, a fairly safe distance from the buildings. Dorian ducks down and sighs, looking at Melody.

“What about us, though? We can't leave now, but we'll have to, if something happens.”

Melody shrugs. “We're only on the first floor, enough time to run if we hear anything and not too close to the ground that we can’t hear people coming before they reach us."

 _Smart girl, he_ thinks, and remembers Bull’s words at his interview. _There are people here who deserve to live more than I do._

“Well, I should thank you for allowing me to stay up here with you. Your strategy is solid and I much prefer being in such lovely company than by myself.”

She smiles. “Don’t mention it. A friend of Bull’s is a friend of mine as well.”

They eventually settle for the evening; Dorian gives Melody a protein bar and some water, and they unfurl the sleeping bag. Dorian tells her she can have it, but she insists they share it. She argues that if they curl up against each other it’ll be much warmer, and the bag is wide enough to fit both of them, so Dorian relents. Melody eyes Dorian’s machete when he sets it next to him for the night, and both of them sleep before the music that shows the day’s casualties fills the night.

He dreams of holding Bull as he tells him stories of his childhood, and of great vast fields of white daisies.

\---

They leave together the next morning, about an hour after the Careers have left. Dorian considers themselves lucky that they weren’t found, and he enjoys having company, even if it means his supplies will surely run out much sooner than he’d like. They talk in low voices and Melody giggles when he acts all high and mighty.

Dorian should’ve seen it coming, really. Their luck couldn’t last for very long.

They’re turning a corner, laughing maybe a bit louder than they should, when Dorian hears a swoosh in the air. Melody gasps and Dorian freezes.

Ahead of them is a boy, eyes wide and mouth agape; district ten or twelve, Dorian reckons. He has three daggers in his left hand, and his right still hangs in the air. He snaps out of his shock and reels his arm back to throw a second one, but Dorian reacts faster; he throws his machete at him, just like he practiced throwing axes at targets back at the training room.

And it seems it's paid off, because the blade hits the boy square on his collarbone.

The daggers clink as they fall on the concrete floor, followed by the boy, who collapses like a puppet doll with broken strings. Dorian feels dizzy, sick to his stomach in a way he's never felt before, but before he can think about what he’s just done he turns around and kneels so he’s eye to eye with Melody.

"Are you alright? Where are you hurt?" He asks, hands over her shoulders, looking deep into her wide eyes. She looks down, Dorian following her gaze, and moves her blood-stained hands away from her stomach.

The dagger hit her in the belly and blood is already pouring from the wound. Dorian swears, just as a cannon goes off, indicating the boy is dead.

 _I've just killed someone_ , Dorian thinks, panicking. His vision starts going black around the edges, the telltale sign that he's about to pass out, when Melody gasps, snapping him out of it. He cannot panic, not now. She needs him.

“Here, let's get you down, dearest,” Dorian whispers as he helps Melody lie down on the cold floor. He puts his hands around the dagger, trying to stop the blood flow somehow, but in less than a minute a small pool has already gathered at her back, staining the gravel a deep, vibrant red. Her gray skin looks ashen, sweat gathers on her forehead, and Dorian is swearing, muttering, trying to think, what to do, where to go, think, _think,_ **_think,_** when Melody gently raises a hand and puts it atop his.

“Can you sing?”

The question makes Dorian freeze. “I-- _what_?”

“A song. Can you sing me a song?”

Dorian’s shaking. He looks down at where he’s been applying pressure; his hands are soaked with warm blood and he notices that the dagger is in all the way to the hilt. Even if he finds and uses any sort of first aid on it Dorian is almost certain that the blade has hit an essential organ and he won’t be able to stop the internal bleeding. His eyes well up with tears.

“Y-yes. Yes, I know a song or two. I-I’m just not sure if I’m a good singer.”

“I think your voice is beautiful,” Melody whispers, her own voice weak, fingers twitching over the back of Dorian’s hand. She grins weakly. “I’d love to hear a song from your district.”

Dorian takes a deep breath and carefully pulls Melody onto his lap, uncaring that he's getting blood all over himself, pillowing her head and neck against his arm. The first tear falls down his cheek as he thinks of a song his mother used to sing to him when he was young.

He grips the pendant around his neck and begins to sing, voice starts low and shaky, but as the music progresses he sings louder, unashamed, unafraid. It's a simple children's lullaby, about a parent protecting their children, and it takes all of Dorian's willpower not to cry too hard as he truly on the lyrics and their significance for maybe the first time in his life. The buildings around him echo the verses, probably getting the attention of several of the remaining tributes, but still Dorian continues until the last verse, the last rhyme, the last word.

Melody smiles and closes her eyes when he’s done, whispers a soft “ _thank you_ ,” and sighs.

The cannon goes off. Not a second later, a building collapses a few blocks behind them, followed by another, and another, and another, until a fine layer of dust has filled the air, thickening the smog that permeates the city.

Shrouded by the sounds of destruction and death, Dorian hugs Melody closer to his chest and weeps.


	2. Chapter 2

Dorian moves into one of the intact buildings just after the hovercraft collects Melody and her killer.

The boy’s backpack had several protein bars and an extra water bottle, as well as a few throwing daggers, but nothing else. Dorian puts everything on his own backpack, takes his machete, and keeps moving forward.

Dorian notices, on the next day, that a total of eight buildings have collapsed, making him cough and cover his mouth and nose until the dust settles. At that pace Dorian suspects the entire city will be destroyed in a week’s time, and that doesn’t give him much confidence at all. Melody and the boy from district ten were the only ones to die the previous day, but three more die with the other eight buildings, which makes Dorian think that they’re being flushed out like roaches.

He’s sat down to eat and rest his legs later in the day, and with a startle he realizes – he’s now part of the last twelve. He’s survived half the Hunger Games, and soon his family and friends will be interviewed back home. He clutches his family pendant and sighs.

In the morning of the fifth day Dorian is hungry, thirsty, and covered in soot. The loneliness and constant wariness are terrible, but nothing is worse than how _dirty_ he feels. He’d beg for a bath or a shower, for brushing his teeth, for washing his hands and face. Melody's blood dried and crackled off his clothes and skin, but only soap would be able to remove the reddish stains and the smell of iron that nauseates him whenever he focuses too hard on it. He turns a corner, distracted, trying to remember the taste of freshly cooked rice topped with a runny egg yolk, when he realizes a second too late that he's face to face with another tribute.

To both his horror and relief, it’s Bull.

He’s holding an axe, has it held high above his head – probably heard footsteps and prepared himseld to strike down whoever was coming his way – but once he sees who it is he freezes mid-strike, eyes wide in shock. Dorian immediately thinks of running, and even worse, of how easy it would be to just thrust the machete up through Bull’s unprotected ribs, but he doesn’t do either. Instead he lets his fingers go slack, the machete clacking against the concrete floor, and immediately after Bull drops his axe. After a heartbeat they both run towards each other, wrapping themselves into a fierce hug.

 _Oh_ how Dorian needed a hug from someone and didn’t know until that very moment.

“It was _you_ ,” Bull whispers once they find shelter on the ground floor of a building nearby. “You sang to Melody, didn’t you. Before she died.”

“How did you--”

“Everyone heard you. When the song was over and the cannon went off... well. I knew right away what that meant. And later when I saw Melody’s picture in the sky..."

Bull stops, breathes in sharply. He rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“She asked for a song,” Dorian whispers, feeling numb, and Bull hums.

“You gave her a lot more than any of us will have before we go. Thank you for that.”

They sit in silence for a while before going over what they have with them in their bags. Bull has a hefty first-aid kit and two very big bottles of water. Dorian is offered one, since both of his are long gone, and he drinks greedily. He knows he should be saving up in case their days in the arena stretch on and on, but at the same time he doesn’t know when he’ll next be able to have more, so he drinks, and Bull doesn't try to stop him.

It doesn't take long for the first building of the day to collapse; they flee their hiding spot, and outside, falling from the sky in the smallest parachute Dorian's ever seen, they see a package. Dorian gasps.

“Someone sent you something,” he says, stunned, but the package floats down and falls perfectly onto his open palm. Bull smiles.

“I think it’s for _you_ , Dorian.”

Dorian looks at the note. _For the amateur singer and his sensitive eyes_ , it says, but there’s no signature, no way to know who it’s from. Inside he finds two pairs of goggles and two face masks, plus a whole package of extra filters. Dorian could cry with joy; whoever their sponsor is, this small package this far into the games must’ve cost them a small fortune, and Dorian feels his chest warm up with gratitude.

He gives the extra ones to Bull. They almost look like the mine workers from District Twelve with their eyes, nose and mouths protected from the lingering smog and dirt that permeates the air.

Thick clouds of dust from the falling buildings rise up and fill the air as they walk down the streets, one deafening explosion after the other, but the masks and goggles stop their eyes from watering and their throats and noses from going dry; a blessed change of pace in Dorian’s opinion. But the more explosions sound out, the less visibility they have, which makes Dorian's heart pound uncomfortably. He can barely see the tip of his own nose through the dust.

In an impulsive and bold move Dorian reaches out and touches Bull’s palm with the pad of his fingers, gently. Feels all the calluses and the rough skin he remembers from the first time they shook hands. His heart beats even faster for a whole lot of different reasons.

Bull immediately responds by wrapping his fingers around Dorian's knuckles, squeezing so tightly it almost hurts. A building starts collapsing right beside them, and so they run away from the rolling debri, hands still clasped together.

Neither one let go after the dust settles, or after the night falls, or as the sky shows the picture of both Careers from District one. They eventually let go, only to wrap their limbs around each other once they're nestled inside their only bedroll, not even bothering to explain the gesture on the evening’s freezing cold.

Dorian imagines his parents having nervous breakdowns in front of the television and Felix grinning as he watches from the sidelines. He falls asleep with a smile on his face.

\---

Three more people die the next two days.

The city is covered in ruins, not a whole lot of buildings still left standing, and both Bull and Dorian’s facemasks are grey with dust and soot. At one point they barely escaped a collapsing building, having merely a couple of scraped knees and a bruised elbow to show for it.

Dorian pokes at the bruise when it blackens - not because he particularly enjoys the pain but because it grounds him, reminds him of where he's at, what they're doing and who he's with. The mark is almost perfectly shaped like Bull's fingers, a solid and constant reminder of the fact that the qunari saved his life.

Bull could've easily run ahead and left Dorian to die, fend off for himself through the last few days of the Games, fulfill his promise to his Tama, but instead he stayed and saved Dorian. No hesitation, no second thoughts, no regrets. When they were away from the rubble and the city was eerily silent, the first thing Bull did was ask Dorian if he was ok.

As if they weren't in the damn Hunger Games still.

Dorian wonders how that must've looked like on TV. The casters must be having a goddamn field day.

Dorian and Bull quickly pick up on the arena's pattern: the number of buildings that are demolished doubles with each passing day. On the sixth day, thirty-two buildings come down, and now, on the mark of their first week in the arena, they've so far counted fifty buildings collapsing in the last couple of hours, so they know fourteen more are still left. Soon the entire city will be just rubble. Walking the zigzag of crosswalks and hiding inside the buildings, even during the evening, becomes less of a good idea the more time passes. It's like taking shelter under a house of cards.

“Where should we go?” Dorian asks as they're walking down the streets, his patched up knee complaining with each step he takes. He eyes the buildings warily. "I worry I won't be able to run very well the next time one of these go down. What's your plan?”

Bull squints at the sky, looking further beyond. They both flinch when another explosion sounds out, and a building collapses just a few blocks away from where they stand. Bull sighs.

“There _must_ be a place where there are no falling buildings."

“Sure there is, but that place is also the Careers hangout spot.”

Bull turns to him. “You mean the Cornucopia?”

“ _Of course_ the Cornucopia. I'd bet my face mask not a single speckle of rubble has rolled into that town square. They must've found tents and food and they're probably camping out there, just waiting for someone dumb enough to take them on head first.”

Bull keeps walking, silent. After almost a full minute Dorian turns to him, alarmed.

“Oh no no no _no_ , you're not seriously thinking of going against the Careers?”

“Would you rather stay here and wait to be crushed by a rock?” Bull asks, frustration clear in his voice. Dorian huffs.

“Going to that fountain is a suicidal move just as staying here is!” Dorian shouts, stepping in Bull's path to block his way. “Do you want to _die_? Is that what you're saying?”

“We're out of food, Dorian!" Bull hisses, voice firm yet low, and Dorian flinches back half a step. "Almost out of water, too! And this whole place is a goddamn booby trap waiting for the right moment to squish us like bugs! Right now our choices are to either see what's going to kill us first, starvation or dehydration, or how long it'll be before someone else takes us down when we're distracted, or try and guess the size of the concrete boulder that's finally going to crush us both! Which one do you fucking prefer?! Because from where I'm standing, if we go to them first, then maybe we'll have a chance of _something_!”

“So your logic is, if we stay here we'll certainly die, it's just a matter of _when_ , _how_ or _what_ kills us, but if we go to the Cornucopia we're also _probably_ gonna die, but because there's a slim chance we might _not_ die that makes it worth it for us to risk our lives going there?”

“ _Yes!_ ”

Dorian huffs. Crosses his arms. He doesn't want to admit it, but Bull has a point. He shakes his head, runs his hand through his hair, and looks back up to say something else, but whatever it was is lost at the tip of his tongue as a glimmer to his left catches his eye and makes him stop.

He turns just in time to see the sniper on the window, the red dot in the middle of Bull's forehead. He widens his eyes just as Bull frowns, confused.

He pushes Bull out of the way.

The bullet hits its mark anyway.

\---

If we stay, we'll die.

If we run, we'll die.

But if we go after the people trying to kill us head on, we have a chance to survive.

That's what goes through Dorian's mind as he sees the blood.

There's so much of it, pouring down Bull's face through the hole in the goggles, staining his face mask and dripping down his chin. The bullet didn't pierce Bull's skull by a miracle, but that doesn't mean it didn't hit him. Thick, smog-covered glass shards cover what's left of Bull's eye, and he's shaking, whimpering, breathing heavily and moaning in pain, hands hovering before his face.

Dorian looks back at the window where the sniper was and sees a flash of very familiar golden blonde hair.

He runs.

Calpernia is like a cat stuck in a corner. There's only one way in and one way out of all these buildings, and she knows it. Hiding will not do her any favours – she was already risking herself by going up the building in the first place, and the longer she stays in it the least likely it is she’ll make it out alive – and staying in that room after she took her shot would’ve made her an easy target.

Her only chance was to kill both Bull and Dorian before they had time to react, and had Dorian not seen her she probably would've done it; she would’ve killed them both in the blink of an eye and walked away. Like a stroll in the park.

But Dorian did see her, and now he knows _exactly_ where she is.

When he arrives at the door of the building, Calpernia steps out and points her gun straight at Dorian. It's a sniper gun, however, and not at all made for close range combat. Dorian jumps away as she shoots, the bullet cracking the pavement, and Calpernia belatedly realizes the gun is almost useless if she can't take her time to properly aim.

She tries to make a run for it, but Dorian is already sprinting after her. She's tall and her legs are long, but she's at a clear disadvantage; she had to run down the stairs of the entire building, and given how she was probably at least twenty floors up she's now thoroughly exhausted. Dorian catches up to her in four quick strides, tackling her, Calpernia yelping as they both hit the floor. The gun clatters away as Calpernia struggles to get Dorian off of her, and Dorian, armed with his machete, hits the hilt of it against her head, hard enough that she passes out.

He's gasping for air, sitting atop her limp and unresponsive body; his stomach heaves but he has nothing to puke since he can barely remember the last time he ate anything.

He can’t kill her. He knows he should, but he can’t do it. Leaving her alive is a bad choice, but _he can’t do it_.

On the distance, Dorian hears the fifth-second building of the day collapsing. He might not be able to kill her, but he can do something that’s almost the same: strip her of her safeguards.

Dorian takes Calperia's gun and backpack, gets up, and runs straight back to Bull.

\---

Calpernia had a real stash with her: a pop-up tent, a full water bottle, a tiny vial with several purple pills, about two dozen protein bars, an unused pair of oversized aviator goggles, a whole package of disposable face masks, and twenty bullets for her sniper gun. Dorian stares at the content of the backpack in shock.

She must've raided the Cornucopia recently, and the fact that she lived to tell the tale says a lot. Dorian remembers the Careers from District One that died a few days ago and wonders if Calpernia was perhaps responsible for it.

Dorian cleans and patches Bull’s eye to the best of his abilities with all they have left of their first aid kit, then he sets the tent in between three piles of rubble, confident they won’t be spotted as long as they wake up early the next day to take it down, and together they get ready for yet another cold evening as darkness falls over the arena.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t push you away in time,” Dorian whispers once they’re lying down, Dorian’s head over Bull’s shoulder, struggling to hold back tears now they’re alone and things have settled down. It helps that they're no longer parched and starving, but Dorian can't stop thinking about Bull's eye.

“Hey, no, don’t say that,” Bull says, rubbing Dorian’s shoulder. “If you didn’t push me away I would’ve been dead. And I have another eye, don’t I? It’s alright. I should be thanking you for saving my life and defending my honor.”

Dorian snorts. “Defending your honor?”

“That’s why you went after her, right? To tell her off. Show her some of that Dorian attitude. Give her a piece of your mind.”

Dorian laughs. It’s the first time in a while he’s laughed, even a little, and it feels nice despite the circumstances.

“Yes, of course, I went after her to _defend your honor_ , you are absolutely right.”

They giggle, Dorian hiding his face in Bull’s shoulder. He feels warm, warmer than anyone Dorian’s ever met; maybe it's a qunari thing. He feels comfortable in his arms. _Safe_. He thinks of his father at home, watching Dorian wrapped in a loving embrace with another man and laughing about defending each other’s honor. He must be having an aneurysm, and the thought makes Dorian smile.

He then remembers how close they both were to dying just a couple of hours ago and tenses up, shivers. Bull shifts.

“You okay?” He asks, worried. Dorian shuts his eyes tightly.

“No. No, I’m not.”

Bull pauses.

“Yeah. I know.”

Silence stretches on in the tent, almost overpowering, stifling. Dorian remembers the sound of birds chirping and people talking outside his bedroom window, and how much he misses it. He thinks of Felix laughing at stupid jokes and Melody giggling as she fluffs up her pink dress. He thinks of the Careers and their smug whoops of victory.

Dorian shifts, almost as if trying to burrow closer to Bull, and Bull responds by wrapping his arms around him, hugging him tightly.

“We’ll be okay, big guy.”

“No we won’t,” Dorian says, choked up, digging his nails onto Bull’s skin.

“I know, but just. Let’s believe it for tonight.”

“It’s too fucking _painful_. Why would you want to pretend?!”

“Because I’m here with you. And if I have to leave this fucking planet in this fucking hellhole of a place, then I’m glad I’m able to spend the last of my days with you.”

It’s like a punch to the stomach, leaving him winded and breathless. Dorian hides his face in Bull’s neck, shoulders shaking as he cries, and Bull buries his face and fingers on Dorian’s hair, whispering comforting words to him in the dark.

They stay like that for a while, Bull gently petting Dorian’s scalp and scratching gently with the tip of his claws. Soon it’s almost like the whole world is gone; the night doesn’t feel cold, the air doesn’t smell stale, and the whole nation isn’t watching them cuddling and sharing the most intimate moment of Dorian’s entire life, seeing his vulnerable side out in the open. It’s just Bull and Dorian, and absolutely nothing and no one else.

When his tears finally subside, Dorian lifts his head and finds that Bull is looking right down at him. Their faces are very close and Dorian can smell Bull’s breath tickling his nose.

And Dorian suddenly realizes that if he dies tomorrow he will regret letting this moment go for the rest of his life.

And so he kisses Bull, and Bull kisses him back without a hint of hesitation, and just for that one moment all is well in the world.

\---

Dorian agrees to raid the Cornucopia.

He and Bull come up with a gameplan: wait until the buildings are collapsing, then take out as many Careers as they can using Calpernia's sniper gun, and finally, improvise accordingly.

"What if we make it?" Dorian asks, frowning. "What if we manage to kill everyone else? What then?"

Bull keeps packing in silence, gaze fixed on the ground.

"You remember what I said to the interviewers. I meant what I said."

"But that was about the kids..." Dorian starts, eye widening. "Bull, _no_. You deserve to live just as much as I do."

Bull looks at Dorian, and _oh_ , how it breaks his heart.

"Maybe I don't want to live in a world where you didn't make it."

Dorian stops breathing. It's like his blood has turned to ice.

"Well, neither do I."

Bull chuckles. "Well, then I guess we're in a fucking pickle, aren't we?"

A pickle indeed. They sit in silence, hands intertwined, eyes down to where they're joined.

It's so _unfair_.

Suddenly, the Capitol's music starts to play, making Dorian jump and Bull frown. It always sounds like it's coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and Dorian finds it deeply unsettling.

" _Attention, tributes_ ," comes a voice from the speakers. " _As a one-time thing, we've decided to add a beneficial twist on this edition of the Hunger Games to amp up the stakes for the last lucky seven of you._ "

"A twist...?" Dorian whispers, confused. Bull shakes his head.

" _If you and another tribute who you've joined forces with are the last two in the arena, then both of you will be declared champions!_ "

Dorian feels like someone's just slapped him. It can't be. It's _impossible_. He refuses to believe it.

And yet, he _wants_ to believe it.

"Can they do that?!" Dorian asks, eyes wide. Bull looks just as surprised, and Dorian notices how hard they're squeezing each other's hand.

"I mean, I guess, since it's their games and they get to make the rules... but..."

" _Pick your pairs wisely, tributes, and good hunting. May the odds be ever in your favor,_ " the voice finishes, the Capitol's cheery music playing once more to indicate the end of the transmission. Dorian lets go of the breath he was holding.

He and Bull both have a chance of surviving. _Together_. They won't have to choose after all.

" _Bull_ ," Dorian sighs out, voice tight with emotion, and Bull throws his arms around him at the same time Dorian surges forward into his embrace, shaking.

"We're doing this, Dorian. You and I," Bull says, voice muffled against Dorian's shoulder.

"Yes," Dorian says, pulling back, laughing and crying all at once. Bull wipes a tear off his cheek. "Yes, _yes_. You and I, Bull."

They lean forward and kiss again, then cling once more for another embrace.

They stay like that for several minutes, and once they've given themselves enough time to calm down they finish packing up, Bull fitting Calpernia's oversized goggles over his face, careful of the patch they made, and finally they start marching towards the Cornucopia, steps silent and ears open. Soon the demolition routine begins anew, allowing them to walk a bit faster with the loud noises around them to mask their footsteps.

They arrive at the surroundings of the Cornucopia once the first ten buildings have already collapsed. There's a small, three-stories building still standing, and around it, only rubble. Dorian and Bull look at each other; it's odd that all buildings around it have gone down with the exception of that one. Almost as if it's intentional.

They nod in silence and, against all their instincts, they go in.

The building has sheer curtains, which means they can peek out without being spotted right away. Dorian volunteers to look first, and sure enough, all four careers are sitting around the fountain, marking on the floor the number of explosions they've heard so far. Easy targets. Dorian's stomach flips uncomfortably.

It's almost _too_ easy.

Dorian ducks, but the curtain flutters on his way down. He curses and turns to Bull.

"Something tells me they know this building is a prime spot," he says. "I bet they were the ones who installed these curtains, to spot if people came in from down below."

Bull moves to the window and peeks out, ducking quickly.

"Fuck, I think you're right. They're packing up and moving out, and I have a feeling they're coming here."

"What should we do?" Dorian asks, hands starting to sweat. Bull loads the rifle, props it up over their backpack, and lies flat on the ground, pointing it towards the door.

"We wait."

Dorian shivers. This is a whole different side of Bull, one he'd never seen before. He wonders how good his aim will be without the one eye.

"I guess we're doing this,” Dorian says, voice shaky.

“Guess we are. You ready, Dorian?"

"No," Dorian says, gripping his machete tightly. "But it would be very telling of my poor character if I ever was, don't you think?"

Bull chuckles and looks at Dorian fondly, such a gentle look in his eye Dorian feels his heart stop for a second.

"Stay behind the door. When it opens, shove the machete through the gap."

Dorian nods wordlessly, walks over to the door and takes position, his heart beating so fast he's worried someone might hear it.

"Deep breaths, Dorian. Inhale for four seconds, hold for four more, exhale for four more. Do it with me."

Bull breathes in, and Dorian follows his lead. He keeps his eyes on the door, focused on his breathing. It helps; not a whole lot, but it's enough to center Dorian and remind him of why he's there. He brings his free hand up to the pendant still around his neck and squeezes it tightly, letting the sharp edges dig into his fingers, allowing the pain to ground him.

Footsteps echo outside on the building’s staircase. Dorian holds his breath.

"Lorren, you go first," someone says. "Hayden, Jackie, stay behind him and I'll take the backline."

"Shut the fuck up, _idiot_ ," one of the girls hisses, dangerously close to the door. Dorian tenses.

They must be a few feet from the door when there’s a loud _thud_ from somewhere below _._ The Careers stop and Dorian and Bull exchange looks.

"What was that?" They ask. Someone spits out a curse.

"It's that bitch Calpernia! Move, move, _move!_ "

They hear the four Careers scrambling, and indeed, Dorian hears Calpernia screaming.

"Quick, open the door a few inches," Bull says, taking the backpacks and rifle and running towards the front of the room. Outside, something heavy thuds to the floor, and someone screams.

" _You bitch, I will kill you! I am going to rip out your limbs one by one, you fucking scummy whore!_ "

 _"I would love to see you fucking try, Jackie!_ "

Dorian takes a hold of the door handle, slowly twists it, then pulls it open just enough for Bull to set the gun barrel through it. He takes position again, and the first shot fires.

Someone falls to the floor, and Bull takes a second shot before closing the door with the barrel of the gun and gets up to lean against it. Both he and Dorian are panting like they’ve just run a marathon.

"Lorren! _Lorren!_ " Someone screams, just as two canon shots are fired outside. "You _fuckers!_ You– _you cowards!!!_ "

A third canon shot goes off. There's just four of them now; Calpernia and the girl from District Two, by the sounds of it. Dorian gets ready to strike her as soon as she goes through the door, but instead he hears footsteps going up, hurried and frantic.

Someone tries to twist the door handle. Bull holds the door closed.

"Now, _come on_ , Pavus," Calpernia sing-songs from the other side, still trying to push the door open. Bull holds it closed with his shoulder, and it barely moves. "It was _real shitty_ of you to steal all my gear, you know? But it was also _real stupid_ of me to miss that shot, too. And now you use _my_ rifle to kill the Careers? Been there, done that."

She pushes against the door again. Bull doesn't budge.

"But enough with these little games, now. You should've killed me when you had the chance, you know. And then you'd only have to worry about that _pathetic_ little girl having a panic attack upstairs. You’re an _idiot_. But I always fucking knew that."

Dorian stays silent. Bull weathers another attempt to knock down the door. Calpernia huffs.

"You better open this _fucking_ door, or else--"

And then Bull steps away and opens the door at the exact moment Calpernia had thrown herself at it in a new attempt to tear it down. Instead she flies through, falls to the floor, dropping the bloody axe in her hand.

Dorian inhales. Calpernia scrambles to her feet, reaches for the axe.

Bull pulls the trigger.

Calpernia freezes, coughs, gurgles. Bull lowers the rifle and stares, a cold, detached look in his eyes. Dorian almost fears him at that moment, how calculated he looks, how unrelenting. How nothing would've stopped him.

And then, Calpernia chuckles.

" _Fine_ ," she says, a horrifying smile on her face, teeth and lips dirty with her own blood. "You won. Congratulations... Was it... worth it...?"

And then she falls to her knees and lies on her side, sighing out, the canon outside indicating she's truly gone.

And then, suddenly, District Two’s Career is there.

It all happens in the blink of an eye.

She shrieks and swings the hammer on her hand to Bull's left leg, right on his blind spot. He screams, bending down, and Dorian propels himself forward. He swings down his machete with a scream, and the blade, sharp as an eagle's eyes, cuts the girl's hand clean off.

She shrieks, loudly, and Dorian, on a whim, kicks her back towards the hallway outside. She staggers back, trips over her fallen comrades, and falls down the stairs.

And then, silence.

Dorian throws the machete away, covers his face with both hands, and Bull immediately limps towards him and holds him in a tight embrace.

"It's over, Dorian. We did it. It's over. We're going home."

"We are," Dorian says, shaking. "But at what cost...?"

Bull stays silent, shushes him. The last canon goes off in the distance.

Dorian helps Bull up; District Two's tribute hit him pretty badly, and his leg will need to be looked at. Navigating through the bodies outside with one leg out of commission isn't easy, but eventually they make it outside.

The sky has miraculously cleared up. The sun is warm, and the Cornucopia fountain is gushing out crystaline water. Dorian laughs, incredulous.

They sit down by the fountain and drink the rest of the water left in their backpacks, watching the hovercraft come down and take away the fallen victors off the last building standing in the entire city.

Bull frowns, squinting up at the sky.

"What's wrong?" He asks. Bull hums.

"Shouldn't they have announced us as Victors right after we killed the last girl?" He asks, and Dorian stops moving his fingers on the fountain's water, his stomach dropping.

Almost as if on cue, the Capitol music begins to play, and out from the speakers comes the announcer's voice once again.

" _Unfortunately, tributes_ ," the voice begins, and Dorian feels dizzy. " _The_ _two Victors rule only applies if both tributes are from the same district, which means that, despite making the cutest couple of this year’s Games, you two are not eligible, and only one of you may win after all._ "

" _Bullshit!_ " Dorian screams, face red with humiliation and anger, jumping to his feet.

"Dorian..." Bull urges, but Dorian shoves his hand away.

"You never said anything about that! You _lied_ to us _on purpose!_ "

" _Good luck, tributes,_ " the transmission finishes, and Dorian stares at the blue sky, at the hovercraft fading away in the distance.

"Dorian."

"They-- they can't do this to us! It's not _fair!_ It's--” Dorian screams, pulling at his hair, then finally falling to his knees in front of Bull. "It's not _right_. None of us should've had to die. _None of us_. _Melody_ , _they killed Melody_. It's _their_ fault she's dead, and now they want us to off each other, and for what?! To fufil their stupid game? Show us we have no other choice other than _obey_ them? And then after we win they'll parade us like farm animals, gossip about us like we're dirty celebrities..."

Bull sits down next to Dorian, hugs him tightly. The sun is beating down on them, and the warmth of both Bull and the sun feels nearly overpowering on Dorian's body. He hugs Bull back, and there they stay for several minutes, just holding each other, crying like babies.

"I don't want to win if it means you won't make it," Bull whispers.

"Me neither," Dorian says. He looks at the Cornucopia, at the water spouting from the mermaid's headless neck, to the last building standing. Their backpack, discarded just a few meters away.

A thought hits him. He pulls away from Bull and sets his hands over his shoulders.

"Bull. Do you trust me?"

Bull nods. "Of course."

Dorian then gets up, rifles through their backpack until he finds it: the purple vials.

He comes back with two and gives one to Bull.

"Let's drink it. Together."

Bull pauses, stares at the vial in his hand.

"No victor?"

Dorian nods.

"They want us to play their game. We played their game, and look where that got us. I'm done. _No more_."

Bull's silent, still looking at the vial. Thinking. Considering.

Dorian waits, heart pounding in his chest, fingers clinging to his mother's pendant.

What must they be thinking, back home? Are they angry at him? Frustrated? Do they feel as exhausted as he feels?

He traces the snake one last time, and hopes they'll return it to his mother after collecting his body.

"Tama," Bull finally says, looking up at the sky. Crying. "I'm sorry I couldn't fulfil my promise."

Dorian presses his lips together, holds onto Bull's free hand.

"I'm with you, Bull," he says. He then pulls the cork from Bull's vial, and Bull does the same to his. “We got here separately, but we’ll leave together. As one.”

"To ending things on our own terms," Bull says, nodding.

"To the end."

They clink the vials together, hands shaking violently, and Dorian counts down.

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

They tip the vials in unison, looking up at the blue skies, hands gripping one another. The liquid has just touched Dorian's lip when trumpets start blaring out from the speakers.

" _Wait, stop, **no!**_ " A voice screeches out over the music, frantic, _desperate_. " _L-ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause to the two victors of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games, Dorian Pavus and Ashkaari! The tributes of District Three and Eleven!_ "

Dorian spits out the poison, rubs his lips and tongue on the sleeve of his outfit. He then looks up at Bull, dazed, and Bull, single eye wide, looks back. The speakers transmit the sounds of the crowd, cheering and clapping and screaming, and from up above a hovercraft lowers down into the arena to pick them up, the wind ruffling Dorian’s hair and lifting clouds of dust off the floor around them, splattering them with cold water droplets from the fountain.

Dorian laughs, running a hand through his hair.

“I am in _so_ much trouble, aren’t I?” He says, getting up and offering a hand to Bull, who takes it and pulls Dorian into a hug, laughing on his shoulder.

“Just maybe,” Bull says, and Dorian laughs all over again.

The ladder to the hovercraft is thrown down, and with one hand still clinging to each other, Bull and Dorian reach up and grab onto the steps.

And as they’re going up and away, and Dorian is looking down at the arena, it dawns on him.

This? This was nothing compared to what’s about to come.

The Games have only just started.


End file.
